Posted on by William G Carpenter

The Trial of Charles Steward

WILLIAM G. CARPENTER is the author of Eþandun (Beavers Pond Press, 2020), which depicts King Alfred’s struggle with the pagan Danes in 878 AD.  Available from Amazon, Itasca Books Distribution and www.williamgcarpenter.com

This is an excerpt from a poem-in-progress on the English Civil War. Previous sections have been published in Expansive Poetry On Line and The Brazen Head. [1] 

The Trial of Charles Steward

A-riding through the rain on miry roads,
Harrison fetched the king to Windsor Castle,
where Hamilton met him, kneeling in the mud. 
That very day, the Commons formed a committee
to stipulate how to proceed against him. 
When Charles shunned Feilding-Denbigh’s last-ditch offer –
his crown for bishops’ lands and the royal veto –
the army council stripped him of his state
and let him dine alone and read his Shakespeare. 
The Commons passed, and sent the Lords, a bill
for a High Court of Justice for to try him. 
The Lords denounced the Commons’ treason charge
as lawless and absurd.  Said Feilding-Denbigh,
named a judge, “I’d rather be torn in pieces
than take part in so infamous a business.” 
Whence the Commons espoused the army’s notion,
originating, plainly, with the Levellers, 
that the people being the source of all just power,
its acts alone were law, sans king or Lords. 
 
Late-coming Oliver eschewed the Council,
meeting instead with Widdrington and Whitelocke,
with Lenthall and Rich-Warwick, to explore
ways other than the officers’ Agreement. 
He asked the Duke of Hamilton at Windsor
to say who had invited him to invade –
Charles, LG Browne, remains of the Eleven? 
No answer was forthcoming from the Scot. 
O.C. disliked fixing a term for Parlament
and thought Charles might be spared, his trial deferred
till after those of other malefactors,
Hamilton, Rich-Holland, Goring-Norwich,
Owen, Lingen, Dyve, and Hastings-Loughborough. 
As ever, Cromwell waited on the Lord. 
 
But when Charles rebuffed Feilding-Denbigh’s mission
as envoy of a clutch of glorious peers –
and the Commons and the army rose together
in calling for the trial of the tyrant –
then Oliver discerned the hand of God
in His clear witnessings and dispensations,
albeit the Holy Ghost had not yet singed him. 
He mused, when added late to the committee
charged to draft the ordinance for the trial,
“Only the greatest traitor in the world –
the greatest rebel – would dare carry on
a plan to try the king for capital crimes. 
But God’s providence has cast us upon it –
myself can but submit.  God bless your counsels,
though I am not provided to give mine.” 
 
The act to frame the High Court of Justice
(which Rushworth called an ordinance of attainder)
alleged a wicked design by Charles Steward
to raze our ancient laws and liberties
and in their place to plant an arbitrary
and tyrannical state – the which design
Charles Steward had maintained with fire and sword,
levying war against the Parlament,
wasting the public wealth, and murdering thousands. 
Some seven score MPs and officers,
citizens, City magistrates, and lawyers
were named to be commissioners and judges. 
 
Fifty or so attended the first meeting
(the Lord General’s last) in the Painted Chamber. 
Fewer met next session, and the next,
and fewer still the next, when Serjeant Bradshaw
declined, at first, the unwanted dignity,
unwanted but rewardful, of Lord President. 
Cooke, Aske, and Dorislaus would draft the charges –
Steele had fallen suddenly, sadly ill. 
Despite the fervor for a large indictment
reaching back to James’ suspicious death,
the court kept out the bulk of Charles’ misdoings,
save those of substituting will for law
and levying war against the Parlament.
 
Harrison and Peter led the train
that ferried Charles in bitter cold from Windsor. 
The trial commenced in vast Westminster Hall
sub Second Richard’s oaken hammer beams,
where Strafford had been tried, and years before,
Frances Howard, Essex’ sometime countess,
for murdering Sir Thomas Overbury. 
Led in by Hacker’s thirty halberdiers,
Charles eyed the Lord President where he sat
in crimson chair, behind a crimson cushion,
and eyed the great sanhedrin of commissioners
to either side, on rows of scarlet benches. 
A mace and sword lay on the Turkey carpet
that decked the table where the clerks awaited. 
Charles turned to view the gentry in the galleries,
Axtell’s musketeers, the thousand groundlings,
then settled on the velvet chair provided,
and rose, and sat again.  Silence commanded,
Bradshaw declared the Commons had empowered
that court to make inquisition for blood. 
 
When Cooke commenced to speak, Charles sought to stay him,
rapping him on the shoulder with his stick –
a harmless battery – whose silver head
fell to the floor, beyond poor Herbert’s reach. 
Charles stooped to fetch it.  Cooke preferred the charge,
which a clerk then read, from Charles’s fell design
to substitute his private will for law,
to the dire raising of his wind-blown standard
at Nottingham, to the great fights at Edgehill,
Brentford, Caversham, Gloucester, Newbury, Cropredy,
Bodmin, Newbury, Leicester, and Naseby Field,
where many thousand free people were slain,
to the mad outbursts of the present year. 
Charles listened sternly, till he scoffed aloud
at “tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public
enemy to the Commonwealth of England.” 
Bradshaw then demanding Charles’s answer,
Charles held the ground he’d seized from the beginning –
that court had no authority to try him. 
 
Repeatedly, the court asked Charles to plead
guilty or not guilty to the charge –
this, repeatedly, he refused to do. 
Repeatedly, he asked whence came their power –
repeatedly was told, the people of England. 
This Charles Steward sturdily denied.
First, no earthly court could try a king,
his crown having come to him from God. 
He reigned not by consent but by descent,
lawful descent, above a thousand years. 
Second, no law provided for such trial
by Parlament – the Commons being none,
lacking king and peers and judicial powers. 
To answer, to submit to usurpation,
was counter to his duty as their king. 
The court, said Bradshaw, overruled his demurrer,
and barred him from persisting in such reasons. 
“Show me the court where reason is not heard,”
said Charles.  Bradshaw said, “The Commons of England.” 
That second day, he ordered Charles’ default. 
 
Despite default, the court chose a committee
of colonels and MPs to hear the witnesses. 
Some thirty testified that day and Thursday,
including gentlemen and husbandmen,
a yeoman, and men standing for the trades
of ironmonger, painter, maltster, weaver,
cordwainer, barber-surgeon, vintner, scrivener,
and soldier.  They had seen the king himself
in helmet, armor back and front, sword drawn
at or near the several battlefields
where thousands on both sides had spilt their blood. 
He’d countenanced the cruelty of his men
in plundering and cutting on their prisoners. 
Later, whilst he treated on the Isle of Wight,
he’d schemed to bring an Irish host to England. 
The witnesses avowed their depositions
in open court held in the Painted Chamber. 
Thus Charles was not judged solely pro confesso,
as men had been in the old Star Chamber days. 
 
The court reconvening to sentence Charles,
he asked for leave to address both his Houses
in the Painted Chamber, as much concerning peace. 
Bradshaw was scarlet-gowned for the day’s business
and wore as before his high-crowned, steel-lined hat. 
Charles too was covered, as all times before. 
Bradshaw said twas but a more delay
and denial of the forum’s jurisdiction,
but Charles denied denying jurisdiction,
though owning he could not acknowledge it. 
 
“Have we hearts of stone?” asked Colonel Downes,
seated back of Bradshaw, “are we men?” 
Downes’ neighbors on the bancs, Cawley and Walton,
and O.C. just below, essayed to calm him,
but Downes stood up and asked for an adjournment,
which Bradshaw ordered, leading the commissioners
to the Court of Wards.  There O.C. and others
angrily chided Downes for “a peevish man”
who “knew not that the court now had to do
with the hardest-hearted man that lived on Earth.” 
Said Cromwell, “He would fain save his old master.” 
Downes went apart and wept.  The court returning,
Bradshaw said twould brook no more delays,
and answered Charles’ objections to its powers. 
 
Briefly, the king’s deeds spoke not of peace. 
Nor were our kings superior to the laws
that often-summoned Parlaments enacted,
the king’s task being to administer justice. 
The people kept the right to bridle kings,
as peers had nobly done in the Barons’ Wars,
every nation furnishing suchlike precedents,
including Charles’s native land of Scotland. 
His grandmother Mary was set aside,
as in England, Edward Two and Richard Two. 
The people set them up and took them down –
the people, not descent, made English kings. 
Truly, Charles was a tyrant and a traitor
who’d fouled the land by shedding guiltless blood. 
Bradshaw prayed the Lord might mend his heart
and make him sensible of his miscarriages,
then, refusing further to hear from Charles,
who all along had disavowed the court,
ordered the clerk (Broughton) to read the sentence:
 
which was that Charles Steward be put to death
by the severing of his head from his body. 
The whole court rose to acknowledge the sentence. 
Charles was led out.  No rioting erupted,
save calls for “Justice!” and “God save the king!” 
Two ladies had cried out against the trial,
one of whom was said to be Lady Fairfax. 
Charles rode in a sedan chair back to Whitehall,
hid from view by soldiers lining King Street. 
No force of reformadoes rose for him,
no turbulent apprentices from London,
nor those who’d marched to disband Fairfax’ army,
nor those who’d risen up against the excise,
nor those who loved the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
On Sunday he was carried to St. James’s,
where Juxon preached and prayed with him all day,
the king excluding others from his presence. 
Cromwell would not have judged him so hard-hearted
had he seen with what feeling he gave his daughter,
when the children visited him on Monday,
his Hooker, Andrewes, and Laud contra Fisher. 
 
“Remember” was the king’s last word to Juxon
up on the freezing platform outside Whitehall. 
He’d likewise urged Elizabeth to remember
his last words to his sons and to his lady. 
Glancing at the sword, he’d said in court
he did not fear “the bill” – he now made good
that piece of bravery.  Charles had always dared
to plant one footstep, then the next – to face
the thunder of the guns, the gusting lead,
and the blind, smoking countenance of Mars
transpierced by stabbing red and yellow fires. 
Before he stepped from James’s Banqueting House,
he took a bite of manchet and some claret. 
 
High above the Parlamentarian troopers
who held back the crowd from the black-draped scaffold,
Charles made his last defense to those nearby,
the colonels, clerks, and executioners,
styling himself anew the people’s martyr,
defender of their wealth and liberties,
who had defied the tyrannous usurpers –
he who’d raised forced loans and so-called ship money,
who’d jailed his Parlamentary opponents,
dissolved the Houses for eleven years,
who’d mutilated Bastwick, Prynne, and Burton,
persecuted godly folk in their churches,
and lastly levied war against the Houses,
scheming to bring in foreign arms to best them. 
 
When the bright axe from the Tower struck its blow –
unlike the flurry needed to quell Mary –
one cried aloud, “Behold the head of a traitor!”
A huge groan, twas said, broke from the crowd,
as if Dagon had crushed them in the temple –
so sunk were they, were we, in fond idolatry,
illumining one small, obstinate prince
with borrowed glimmers from our Lord and King. 
Hacker’s troopers swiftly cleared the streets. 

[1] “Parlament” was Milton’s preferred spelling, as being more faithful to the word’s Late Latin origin. Steward is not a spelling error.

Posted on by William G Carpenter

Dispatches from 1643

The following is an extract from Book II of William G Carpenter’s epic poem about the English Civil Wars.

The poet is Philip Meadowe, assistant to John Milton in his role as Foreign Language Secretary for the Council of State under the Protectorate.  Meadowe reads his lines to Milton at Milton’s house in Petty France, Westminster. 

1643: a tough year for the Parliamentarian armies, with defeats in every quarter of England, and ever and always short of money and provisions.  Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (herein “Dev-Ex”), Captain-General of the Parliamentary Army, is Meadowe’s protagonist in the early sections; this excerpt presents the successful conclusion of Dev-Ex’ siege of Reading in April 1643.

An excerpt from Book I, The Sword of Gideon, may be found at Expansive Poetry Online Spring 2022 (www.expansivepoetryonline.com/CarpenterPoem.html). 

WILLIAM G. CARPENTER is the author of Eþandun (Beavers Pond Press,2020), which depicts King Alfred’s struggle with the pagan Danes in 878 AD.  Available from Amazon, Itasca Books Distribution and www.williamgcarpenter.com

The Loss of the West

Dev-Ex’ men were dying by the score: 

“to death, by troops, the soldiers went,” says Chapman,

men spotted, burning, writhing, raving, bruised,

the life of men ebbing in stinking rills,

yet Dev-Ex knew no crime against Apollo,

no priest’s daughter seized, no ritual stinted,

that merited infernal punishment

of his half-frozen, always hungry men –

unless, as seemed unlikely, He preferred

east-facing altars and communion rails

and a Book of Common Prayer for the godly Scots –

unless He favored base servility

towards every courtier that caught Charles’ ear,

including Laud, Charles’ encroacher-in-chief. 

Or was it our indifference to His Word,

maiming and murdering maugre Majesty? 

Rupert had stormed Birmingham on Good Friday,

then, on the very feast of the Resurrection,

Sir William Waller occupied Welsh Chepstow –

perhaps no insult to the Prince of Peace

unless pursued without humility,

which was, Dev-Ex conjectured, Waller’s way. 

Our guns knocked down the tower of St. Giles,

but only when the Rs set a cannon on it. 

As to maimed rites, Parliament starved his army,

though willing enough to grant him compensation

for R despoilment of his lands in Staffs

out of the lands of Arthur Capel, Charles’s

lord-lieutenant of Salop, Chesh, and North Wales –

who loyally had bought a barony

when Charles, hungry for money, slashed the fee. 

(A bargain at three hundred fifty pounds;

Sir Richard Newport later paid six thousand.) 

The “generals” in the Houses, knowing famine

and filthiness would breed disease in soldiers

who could afford nor daily bread nor clothing

whenever their promised daily eight pence failed,

nevertheless dared not incur the blame

of taxing men enough to fund the war –

pretending to themselves that Charles’s false

and dilatory treaty for a peace

would obviate the need to pay the army. 

Wherefore the Houses tottered along on loans,

first voluntary, then by threat of law,

and now sought to shift the hugeous cost

of war onto the Rs by sequestrations,

a measure certain to inflame their hatred. 

Only Pym, the true, the brave, foresaw

the Ps must needs dig deeper for the Cause

and dared to introduce an excise bill,

which naturally would kindle popular ire. 

As Dev-Ex lay in Daniel Blagrave’s bed,

his mind floating up through depths of sleep,

Sir John Meyrick breathing next to him

in darkness, with Sir John’s siege-guns rumbling

all day, all night, now going on nine days,

from west, north, east, and south of the worn town,

the birds a-chattering in the intervals,

he knew the siege of Reading verged on failure. 

Most of his regiments were undermanned,

primarily from this devilish camp fever

that wantoned through his army’s camps and billets. 

Provisions, powder, shot grew ever scarcer. 

And today, Charles’ host would arrive in force. 

At least the dead and dying could be shipped

down the Thames, which the Ps controlled downstream. 

An army is a perishable thing: 

maybe he ought to have rolled the dice at Oxford,

leaving Aston’s garrison in his rear. 

War was martyrdom, whoever triumphed. 

Pudsley dressed him.  Dev-Ex breakfasted

with Carey-Rochford, Robartes, Grey, and Hampden,

Constable, Goodwin, Skippon, and Du Boys. 

Meyrick, of course.  Cold capon, bread, and wine. 

They then progressed from Blagrave’s house in Southcote

to Caversham, where they met with Colonels Holborne,

Barclay, Meldrum, and Middleton, who’d slept

close to their regiments across the Thames. 

Dev-Ex had brought his secretary, Baldwin. 

Dawn lightened the rainy air.  No sun shone,

though fresh buds glowed on the tips of branches. 

“This Council of War shall now come to order.” 

Thus President Meyrick.  A dim chill tavern. 

“To recapitulate,” Dev-Ex began,

“why we’re here instead of Charles’s capital: 

leaving Aston’s regiments in our rear,

seven of foot and several troops of horse,

whilst charging Charles’s ring of garrisons –

not wise.  Whilst our more greener regiments

further dissuaded us from undertaking

the more hazardous task.  For which cause, too,

we thus far have elected not to storm

the governor’s forbidding palisadoes. 

Also our bargemen crave this reach of Thames. 

To boot, this matter weighed as much as any,

the welfare of the godly Reading people

groaning under Sir Arthur’s popish cruelty,

beaten, robbed, enslaved – their homes their prison. 

Rupert’s troopers roar like a sudden squall,

but Aston’s swarming plunderers have settled

like locusts on the folk, consuming them. 

“We’ve held off from mortaring their houses

and burning the unhappy town to the ground. 

Our guns play on their works, not on their churches. 

And so we find ourselves:  the walls unbreached,

their garrison intact, and our men scourged

by fever – with Charles and Rupert and young Maurice

and ten or twelve regiments, horse and foot,

arriving from Wallingford at any hour. 

In which light, the sole course, best to preserve

what yet survives of our afflicted force –

you know not how it gnaws at me to say it –

the only certain means to preserve our army,

is penitently to march back to Windsor,

relinquishing this siege for better days.” 

They sat in silence, stunned.  Constable bridled: 

“My lord, you mock our faith and fortitude. 

Think of the vast mercy shown at Kineton

and other fields too numerous to name. 

Crawling back to Windsor, where our men

had starved, but for killing of Charles’s deer –

with Charles and Rupert snapping at our flanks –

it behooves us, rather, to quick-march to Oxford

and storm it, having lured the popish wolf,

the wolf and the wolf’s cubs, from their popish den.” 

Du Boys added, not to be thought timid,

in his tongue-tied Netherlandish accent,

“When we have Oxford, they must sue for peace.” 

Meyrick had replaced him on the ordnance. 

The president studied faces, but said nothing –

betraying no dismay or disagreement,

unclear whether he was for or against retreat,

as Dev-Ex’ oldest, closest comrade present. 

Anticipating, Skippon answered thus: 

“Respected sirs, our horse may reach the town,

but our lame foot would quickly be devoured

by Cavaliers raging along Thames-side. 

And it will take some days to ship our sick

downriver, lest Sir Arthur murder them.” 

The small coal fire began to warm the room,

“divine tobacco” (Spenser) scenting the air. 

Said Hampden with a smile:  “My lord but tempts us. 

Not so, Lord General?  You would try our courage? 

The mercies Colonel Constable refers to,

they follow us today.  My Lord Grey (nodding)

has swelled our host.  Our trenches indefeasibly

advance on Aston’s works.  This man Flower –

we’ve now cut off Charles’ traffic with his people.” 

“A malignant messenger,” commented Meyrick. 

“A drummer of ours fished him out of the river.” 

Goodwin spoke up eagerly, “And look

at the feats of our fierce Caledonian friends,

Barclay and Holborne foiling the Earl of Forth;

Meldrum and Middleton, at Dorchester,

routing Charles’ life guard and snatching a cornet.” 

Dev-Ex exhaled a puff of smoke, content

to hear his councillors debate the motion. 

An old Parliament man, the General knew

that deference must be pricked to foster counsel. 

Grey added that the Eastern Association,

having assumed the risk and the expense

of sending several regiments abroad

(minus the Norfolk troop that mutinied

rather than fight for foreign counties’ safety)

with Cavendishes criss-crossing their northern borders,

if the Houses’ host rearward marched to Windsor

never again would join in such campaigns. 

The Parliament itself might reconsider

commissions should this mountain sire a mouse. 

The colonels knew that Lord Grey’s eastern levies

were the worst-equipped, -disciplined, and -paid

of any mustered for the present siege. 

They studiously refrained from knowing glances. 

Dev-Ex nodded.  Grey could contribute nothing. 

“I see that none here favors our withdrawal,”

said Dev-Ex, releasing peaceable smoke,

“which therefore, for lack of a second, dies. 

Yet such would not impair our army’s principal

purpose, which of course is guarding London. 

Nor do all favor a sudden lunge at Oxford. 

And so, a bear at stake, we abide Charles’ dogs. 

War is martyrdom, whoever triumphs.” 

They sat a moment, till Dev-Ex suggested

the Council briefly adjourn to Caversham Hill,

whence they might gain celestial instruction

as to their dispositions for the day. 

With Meyrick leading, following the thunder

that broke at intervals from the thick cloud

and smoke that hid the battery up the hill,

recalling Sinai to those godly captains,

they left behind the houses of the village

and left their horses at the barricade

that guarded Aston’s knowledgeable works. 

They found themselves exposed to wind and rain,

and earthquake when the greater pieces roared,

then huddled in the lee of a makeshift shed

erected on the south perimeter

to guard the match and powder from foul weather. 

Stepping into the wind, the General peered

across the river towards the battered town,

once prosperous, once occupied by Danes

as hostile as Sir Arthur Aston’s Rs. 

He scarcely could discern its walls and ditches

through the slanting rain and low blowing clouds. 

Nor could he find his other batteries,

whose smoke the rain and gale bore away. 

Beckoning, he led the shivering colonels

across the hill’s crown to its northmost fence. 

From there they could make out their furthest outworks,

but beyond those, nothing.  Where was Charles? 

He scanned the plain with his perspective trunk,

then absently passed the device to Meyrick. 

He eyed the dripping faces of his fellows. 

“Here we are,” said Dev-Ex.  “At the stake. 

Four good if weary regiments we have

facing Charles’ most probable approach. 

Can four withstand his ten?  And what if Rupert

swoops in from west or south, and Aston sallies,

an anvil to the German prince’s hammer? 

The Houses’ army could be smashed to bits,

the London road left practically unguarded,

and us to face whatever punishments

befall men who squander the Lord God’s host.” 

A wet gust licked Dev-Ex’s fringe from his brow. 

Meyrick ushered the Council back to the shed,

where Dev-Ex dabbed his eyes.  Continuing: 

“Yet I concur, I must, with your advice,

Lord Grey, that to scurry back to Windsor

would be at least as costly to our Cause,

worse than defeat, in weakening the spirit

of those who do, and those who might, support us.” 

Unwilling to infect them with his dread,

and wishing, further, to lift up their hearts

despite the wind and rain, despite their prospects,

Dev-Ex glanced from face to face.  How he missed

Greville – his faith, his quiet joy in those he loved,

his portion of Our Savior’s kindliness,

his lucency in speech, his unrestrained

audacity in countering the foe. 

At least he still had Meyrick, Hampden, Robartes –

unlike Achilles, who went mad with grief

when his Patroclus fell to Hector’s spear. 

He caught the expectant glint in Hampden’s eye,

Hampden’s lips as if prompting his next words: 

“Let us rejoice, dear friends,” concluded Dev-Ex,

“in how Our Lord has favored this our leaguer. 

His mercies you know well, and his afflictions. 

It is our privilege to fight His battles.” 

Still Hampden looked at him expectantly. 

“Meyrick,” Dev-Ex said.  “Turn these great guns

to north-northwest.  Charles will be here soon.” 

Hampden, yet again, now Goodwin too. 

His two MPs, with Constable a third. 

Meyrick was a fourth, but “grappled to him

with hoops of steel and worn at his heart’s core.” 

“Robartes,” Dev-Ex added, to the baron,

“your foot, men know, stood firm at Kineton. 

Go quickly, now, and march them over the bridge. 

Meldrum will dispose them in his lines. 

We’ll meet Charles with five regiments at Caversham.” 

Robartes paled, pursed his lips, and nodded,

the slow action more a submissive bow. 

“Questions?  Meyrick, you may adjourn the Council.” 

They silently recrossed the battery,

the south wind spitting rudely in their faces. 

Dev-Ex felt as though his mask had cracked,

allowing chill tears for the coming slaughter

to drench his shaven cheeks in rivulets. 

The slender works he’d raised against his dread

gave way, and fear suddenly swarmed his trenches. 

“Dear Lord.  Dear Lord,” he muttered to himself. 

“Only you.  Only you, my Lord.  My God.” 

And the Lord God of Hosts heard his appeal. 

He stopped and looked across the river, where

the drifting cloud concealed and revealed Reading. 

A whitish thing appeared and disappeared,

wavering on the corner of the wall,

the northwest corner, facing Caversham Bridge. 

He looked, and the others followed his gaze,

as the white cloud opened and closed the vision. 

He took back his perspective-trunk from Meyrick. 

It was.  Yes.  A white flag of parley. 

“Praise God,” said Dev-Ex.  “Aston wants to talk.” 

But Aston did not want to talk.  Bedridden,

speechless from an injury to the head

inflicted by a falling chimney tile,

thanks to Meyrick’s diligent cannoneering,

Sir Arthur had laid down his tyranny. 

Command devolved on Colonel Richard Feilding,

a kinsman of William Feilding, Earl of Denbigh,

an R, and of P Colonel Basil Feilding. 

Dev-Ex hurried back across the river

and sent a trumpeter with Carey-Rochford,

whose father, Dover, served in Charles’s horse guards,

to make a truce, if offered, and give terms,

God willing, for surrender of the town. 

The Rs sent Colonel Bolle and LC Thelwell

and Sergeant-Major Gilby out to treat,

while Carey-Rochford stayed behind, a hostage,

joined by LC Russell and SM King. 

Meyrick’s guns fell silent, as did Feilding’s. 

When Dev-Ex summoned Aston, he’d refused

to let him march away with all his men. 

“I came not,” Dev-Ex said, “for the town only,

but for the men” – the whole three thousand of them,

a formidable access of strength for Oxford. 

But now, with Charles and Rupert on his doorstep,

his regiments consuming with the fever,

Dev-Ex willingly approved that trade

(excepting renegadoes from his army),

but capped removal of R guns and plunder. 

“Do we lack faith?” asked Hampden, privately,

once the trumpeter was on his way. 

They stood a few steps off from Dev-Ex’ tent,

where the R envoys sat.  The rain had paused. 

“Where is the sword of Gideon and the Lord?” 

Hampden continued.  “We outnumber Charles. 

Relief from Oxford was expected, which

is why we came with such a populous host.” 

“I’ll bear whatever blame accrues,” said Dev-Ex,

“without undue concern for martial glory. 

We cannot risk leaving London naked. 

Better a living dog, than a dead lion. 

Their ‘full honors of war’ will cost us nothing.” 

A distant cannon fired, well beyond Caversham. 

Charles was coming.  They went inside the tent,

Dev-Ex quietly ordering the guards

to keep the Rs from running back to Reading. 

“We’re under a truce,” he said to Colonel Bolle. 

The rain resumed.  Cannon- and musket-fire. 

The Rs were agitated, caught between

their truce and their obedience to Charles. 

A messenger from Colonel Meldrum came: 

Barclay’s and Robartes’ men were holding firm

against the whole brunt of Charles’ attack. 

Hampden left the tent to order dinner

and fetch a few more guards to watch the Rs. 

Colonel Bolle hailed from Louth in Lincolnshire,

but his foot regiment was raised in Staffs. 

Dev-Ex, the latter county’s lord-lieutenant,

knew Bolle’s officers and knew their families. 

Gilby, a papist, served under papist Belasyse. 

They dined.  There was no sally out of Reading,

which, Dev-Ex said, was good news for their treaty. 

Good news, he meant, for the R negotiators,

now Dev-Ex’ hostages in all but name. 

He ordered Hampden to the nearest battery,

with orders to let fly with one great gun

to mind Colonel Feilding of his position. 

The cannonfire dwindled and fell silent. 

Feilding asked for leave to seek Charles’ blessing

on the terms he and Dev-Ex had agreed. 

A messenger was sent and Charles was found

encamped amid his host near Wallingford. 

He seemed to give assent to Dev-Ex’ terms,

whereupon Colonel John Belasyse MP,

Lieutenant Colonel Edward Villiers, Bolle,

Gilby, Thelwell, and George Bond joined Feilding

and cosigned the articles of surrender. 

The following morning, Aston’s garrison

(including Henry Mordaunt in disguise,

soon to inherit his poor father’s earldom)

marched from Reading out Grey Friar’s gate,

led by Sir Arthur on his horse-drawn litter,

drums rattling, colors hanging, trumpets bleating,

the foot with ball in mouth and smoking match,

with four pieces of ordnance in their train

and fifty wagonloads of bag and baggage.